


The Heart of the Matter

by Mazarin221b



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Angst, Break Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-12
Updated: 2011-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-24 13:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b/pseuds/Mazarin221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 4 part story, and each chapter is a 221b.</p><p><i>He’s the one that ended it, told John to go, watched John’s face crumple in agony. He was right, damn it, and if John couldn’t see that, couldn’t understand how important it was, it was best they part.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Heart of the Matter

“I saw John last night,” Lestrade says, apropos of nothing.

Sherlock doesn’t even break stride. “And I’m supposed to care, why?” he says, tone strained even to his own ears.

“Sherlock, it’s been _months,_ Lestrade says, with an exasperated gesture. “It’s time to let go.”

Sherlock shrugs, remembering John’s hard, cold voice cutting across a dark room. _“I don’t care what he’s done. If you hurt him, Sherlock, I will drop you where you stand.”_  Thirteen years old and holding other kids for ransom, locked away in tiny little holes across the city. He couldn’t _believe_ that John thought…

Lestrade breaks into his thoughts. “He was with someone,” he says quietly. “I think they were…together.”

Sherlock can’t stop the bright flare of jealousy that wells up in his gut, ugly and twisted. He’s the one that ended it, told John to go, watched John’s face crumple in agony. He was right, damn it, and if John couldn’t see that, couldn’t understand how important it was, it was best they part.

Anger got him through the next week.  Pride after that, enough pride to soothe the hollow feeling in his chest.

But when he finally sees John for the first time across a busy street he can’t help but smile, and feel a faint stirring of hope when John tentatively smiles back.

 

 _Title from: Don Henley, The Heart of the Matter_


	2. About Forgiveness

It’s 76 hours after he sees John for the first time in months that he gathers the nerve to text him.

 _Doing well?_

The reply takes about five minutes. _Yes. You?_

Sherlock pauses, then decides to go for the unvarnished truth.  _I’ve been better._

John’s response is vicious, stinging, and exactly, exactly what he deserves.  _Just now figuring that out, are we?_  

Sherlock hurls his phone across the room.  He tells himself that he’s reached the point now of forgiveness, but in the deepest parts of his heart, he knows he was entirely wrong to start with, and that knowledge cuts deep.  The last remnants of anger and pride that kept him going have burnt to nothing, curled to ash, left him cold and grey and empty and utterly alone.

Sherlock retrieves his mobile. _If you will allow this last communication, let me say I was cruel. Despicable. Dreadful.  And I’m sorry._

 _I still love you._

 _You’re a bastard,_ comes the reply.

Sherlock’s heart sinks, finality stealing over him until he feels his mobile buzz.

 _I still dream of you. I still think I feel your breath on my neck, and it hurts to be wrong._

His fingers are shaking, stuttery. _I want to see you. I love you. Let me try again. I’m begging._

A forever pause. _Angelo’s. You’ll buy._


	3. Learning Again

Sherlock is so fidgety at their first meeting at Angelo’s John reaches across the table to quiet his hands where they’re playing with the cutlery.

“Stop,” he says gently, and his touch is electric on Sherlock’s skin, skittering up his arm and jolting his heart, making it flutter. Even John’s smell is intoxicating, Sherlock’s mind chasing memories of warm, dark nights spent entwined.

 “You’re bored,” Sherlock says, and there’s no malice intended, just a bare statement of fact.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

 “And you’re about to vibrate off your chair. Why am I even here?” John places his napkin on the table, a clear warning sign to either put up or shut up, and Sherlock knows he’s ready.

“I want to start over.”

The next meeting is at a pub near Baker Street, the next in a coffee house. Each time John thaws a little more, every time Sherlock parts with “I’m sorry, and I love you.” And every time John shakes his head and waves goodbye, Sherlock feels more and more resigned.

Until the fifteenth time, when John reaches forward, catches Sherlock’s hand in his own and smiles at him softly.

“I’m ready,” John says, and Sherlock’s heart soars.

He stretches out a long arm to hail a cab, taking them both to see the newest case, the newest body.


	4. A Little Tenderness

John has been working with him again on cases for almost two months when the tension finally breaks.

They still share post-case dinners, but John doesn’t move back into Baker Street, and Sherlock hasn’t asked, knowing the answer won’t be what he wants to hear. So when they glance up at each other over a carton of pad thai one evening in John’s tiny flat in Islington and that electric tingle races up his spine, it’s not his bed he takes John to, but John’s own, an unfamiliar landscape that still smells of home.

“Is this okay?” he asks, hands skimming up John’s sides to push tee shirt and jumper over his head.

“Yes, please Sherlock, hurry -“ Passion is evident in John’s expression, his hands deft  where they undress and push Sherlock back on the bed. Sherlock pulls John along with him and it’s a tangle of limbs, soft sighs, shared breath, kisses and caresses and “I’m sorry,” and “I love you,” wrapped up in a single skein of _them_ , their lives, rewoven.

Afterward, Sherlock spends ages mapping John’s skin with his fingers, talking to him, always talking now.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d ever want…” he stutters.

“Good God, Sherlock, I never _stopped_ wanting.” John kisses him, the forgiveness of his frailties evident in that caress, warm and beautiful.


End file.
